Get a Homepage

If you’d rather turn your blog into a website, with a static homepage that people will land on every time they arrive, it’s easily done. Combine a homepage with other static pages and some custom menus to help visitors navigate, and before you can say “Told you so!” you’ve got a website.

Create your homepage

Start off by creating the page you’d like to use as your homepage, via Pages >> Add New in your dashboard. Call it “Home.” Don’t worry about writing it yet — we’re just getting your website set up here. Stick in a bit of placeholder text if you’d like.

Now, create a second, blank page from the same menu and call it something like “News” or “Blog” — anything that communicates that this is where to find your posts, as opposed to your homepage.

Now head to Settings >> Reading and scroll until you see “Front page displays” (this setting is theme-specific; if your blog doesn’t have this setting, try a different theme): this is where you’ll find the option to switch your homepage from showing your latest posts to the new, static page you just created. Click the button next to “A static page” and select both the page you decided to use as your homepage, and the blank one you created to house your blog. You should have something that looks like this:

And when you go to your web address, you should now see your new homepage rather than blog posts. Granted, you’re looking at either a blank page or some placeholder text, but still! You’ve built a website. Kudos.

An arresting visual look, from header to custom colors and fonts. You’ll learn how to put those into action in Get Configured.

Some useful widgets in the sidebar of your blog, to help people find their way around or get an at-a-glance picture of what your site or blog is all about. You can learn about setting up and getting the best out of widgets in Get Configured.

That’s it — you should now have a static homepage that transforms your site from simple blog to beautiful website.